After King's assassination, one man kept people from rioting in Macon

Fifty years ago Wednesday, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and rioting erupted in cities across the country in the aftermath.

Macon was relatively peaceful, but that might not have been the case had it not been for one man, Herbert Dennard says.

He nearly became violent himself. He was working at the Norfolk Southern railroad yard when the news came over the radio that King had been shot to death. Dennard was the only black man on his shift. He was devastated, but some of his co-workers started laughing.

"Some of them said 'They finally got him,'" he recalled. "They were just laughing like I don’t what. I was so angry that I picked up a big bar and said the next person laughs, I would hit them."

His foreman came over and told him that he understood why Dennard was upset — and that he could go home the rest of the day with pay — but that if he ever did something like that again, he would be fired.

On the way home, Dennard passed Cherry Street at what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and he saw people beginning to throw trash cans and rocks.

But Dennard said William P. "Daddy Bill" Randall, a noted local civil rights activist, came along and put a stop to it.

"He told everybody to calm down and go home," Dennard said. "He told them what Dr. King stood for and what he was about. Most of them went home."

The Macon Telegraph reported that on the Saturday after King's assassination, Randall and others led about 300 peaceful marchers to City Hall, where they were greeted by Mayor Ronnie Thompson and other city officials, who held a ceremony recognizing King's death. The story stated that Thompson expressed "deepest sympathy for the loss."

Hart saw King's funeral procession

Sam Hart, who would go on to become a Bibb County Commission chairman, was serving in the Army in Europe when he heard the news. By chance, he was due for leave at the time, and he was in Atlanta when the funeral was held. While he didn't attend the funeral itself, he did see the procession. He saw King's coffin roll past on a farm wagon pulled by two mules.

"A lot of people were on the streets," Hart said. "It was a celebration of a life well lived. I got the feeling it was going to inspire people to continue to do things. It was not hopelessness. To me it was just the opposite."

Alex Habersham grew up in Macon and lives there today, but when King was assassinated he was teaching at a segregated high school in Savannah.

"A lot of students were crying and upset," he said. "It was just doom and gloom because of the respect for Dr. King and the progress he had made. It felt almost like the end of the world."

On March 23, 1968, just 12 days before he was killed, King spoke at New Zion Baptist Church in Macon. The Rev. Ira Joe Johnson, who was 17 at the time, met King at that gathering. Later, when he got the news King had been killed, he was so angry he started walking up and down the road near his home in Dry Branch. He said he had good relations with the white people who lived around him and was never called by a racial slur.

"There was no anger with the white men that I grew up with, but there was anger with the nation," he said.

After the walk, he decided that he wanted to write a letter to the editor at The Macon Telegraph, which he did.

"What kind of a nation are we living in?" he wrote. "What kind of a person is responsible for wanting to take the life of a minister who preached 'Love one another.'"

Johnson said King inspired him to spend his life working to improve race relations.

All of those interviewed had similar comments when asked what they thought about how things have changed in the past 50 years.

"I think there has been a lot of progress, and there is a lot progress that needs to be made," Habersham said. "Dr. King’s efforts were not futile."

On the night before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, King gave a speech known today as the "I've Been to the Mountaintop" address.

"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life," he said. "Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land! And so I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!"

This story was originally published April 3, 2018 at 5:51 PM with the headline "After King's assassination, one man kept people from rioting in Macon."